Moses, Noah: Hollywood's attempt at re-writing the Bible?

Last night, in the busyness of the Christmas season, I got a few friends to come out to watch the new Moses movie:  Exodus, Gods and Kings.  I had been intrigued by some of the previews, the hype around the movie, and the fact that "Batman" would be playing Moses.  In some ways, I was hoping that the movie would stay somewhat true to scripture, unlike the Noah movie which completely butchered the Noah story and made it more about environmentalism instead of sin... and honestly Russell Crowe's Noah was a terrible movie.

Without attempting to spoil the movie, Exodus was in my opinion actually a decent movie, assuming you take the Bible out of it.  In some ways, Ridley Scott attempted to remake Gladiator in Egypt with Christian Bale instead of Russell Crowe.  The scenes with the plagues were very well done and there were some really cool battle scenes during the beginning of the movie (I did say that it did feel like Gladiator in a way).

So... if I were to respond to the question:  "Should I watch this movie?" as a moviegoer, I would tell you that it's worth watching.  It is pretty entertaining and you do go to the movies to be entertained, primarily.

Now, as a Christian... and as a Christian who takes scripture pretty seriously, I was not happy about the (what I'll call) "creative license" that Ridley Scott took with the Exodus account.  The "Prince of Egypt" part of the movie was quite good, as the book of Exodus doesn't really tell us much about Moses' being raised in Pharoah's household so there's a lot of room for creative license there.  That was very well done.  However, Ridley Scott didn't stop there.  Now, not to spoil the movie... there were some issues I had with:

• Timing of events... it was at this point that it was clear that the movie was a re-write of Exodus, not a cinematic experience of the Biblical story
• The movie's portrayal of God.  Both in form as well as His demeanor
• The movie's attempt to paint the "burning bush" experience like a hallucination that Moses had versus a real, powerful, life-changing encounter with God himself.
• Moses's "terrorist" acts while in Egypt, which were clearly made up by the movie writers and not part of scripture.
• Moses's consistent arguing with and doubting God throughout the story

And I could cite a few more examples, but you get the gist.  The story, I felt, seemed to humanize the Pharoah and make him look benevolent and attempt to make God look sinister and uncaring (am I the only one that felt this way?).  I've been noodling over Ridley's Scott's portrayal of God and Moses's relationship with God a lot since last night.  

Honestly, this movie is at best an attempt at best at creative license and at worst revisionist history with the goal of wrecking our faith in a loving God whose heart is to redeem His rebellious people.  The book of Exodus is the story of God coming through for His chosen people, against great odds (so they thought) and using an unlikely man as His messenger. 

In today's age, what's "scary" (if you don't believe that God is in control over everything) is that in today's Christian culture and especially among "mega-church" Christians, there are fewer and fewer believers that really know what's in their Bible.  If you don't know what's in the Bible and have a surface knowledge of scripture, doctrine, and theology, you could easily watch a movie like this and make assumptions upon God and upon God's story by viewing a film that seemingly attempts to undermine the Biblical narrative and have your faith in some way undermined.  I think that could be very easy if our faith isn't well-grounded.  

What I do hope that, as I commented on Facebook after seeing the movie last night, is that those that watch it would treat it for what it is... entertainment... and would be encouraged to go to the book and read the story for themselves.  The book is indeed better, and much more true.  

I do hope that this movie would get people to read their Bibles... and that God's word will do what it's always done as it is "living and active" as Paul wrote and that the Holy Spirit would speak God's truth into us in a way that Ridley Scott's fiction cannot hope to.  I hope that it will awaken a desire to know God as He is revealed through scripture, and not rely on others (including good "others" like great pastors like Louie Giglio and Andy Stanley) to tell us what to believe but that we will prayerfully search out God's word to know who He has revealed Himself to be and in doing so fall in love with the God who is pursuing us, just as He had pursued the nation of Israel in their season of bondage.  

To close, would I recommend this movie?  

If you're looking for something like Passion of the Christ and will be mad if a movie "desecrates scripture".... then I would say no.  Don't waste your money.  

However, if you want to engage in a dialogue about the Biblical God versus what culture has defined Him today to be... or how it is attempting to define Him for us... read the book (Exodus is pretty short), and then take your friends to watch this movie and discuss.  I'll betcha it'll be one of the most engaging talks you may have in a while.  I actually plan to do this with the next small group I lead, and that we learn to engage culture gracefully with truth in a better way as a result.  

Just my $0.02 :-)